Corporatism,policies and growth

We investigate whether corporatist wage setting and policy making institutions negatively affect a) the slope of the growth path of the economy, by yielding decisions that resist the introduction of technological progress; b) the position of the growth path, through higher transaction costs involved in the policy decision making process. The estimates reveal: a) a negative partial correlation between corporatism and growth; b) a robust correlation between growth, union pervasiveness and other policy regressors; c) no significant correlation between corporatism and output level.Received: October 1999, Accepted: October 2002, JEL Classification: J51, P41We wish to thank Sebastiano Bavetta, Domenico da Empoli, Ernesto Felli, Massimo Finoia, Gianluigi Galeotti, Kevin B. Grier, Alenka Kajzer, Hannelore Weck-Hanneman, the participants to the 1999 Meeting of the European Public Choice Society and to the seminars of the Center for Research on Economics of Institutions, as well as three anonimous referees for comments on previous versions of this paper. Financial support from the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, grant n. 98.01482.CT10 is gratefully acknowledged. The usual caveat applies.     

Macro news and bond yield spreads in the euro area

This paper analyses the effects of newspaper coverage of macro news on the spread between the yield on the 10-year German Bund and on sovereign bonds in eight countries belonging to the euro area (Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using daily data for the period 1999–2014. The econometric analysis is based on the estimation of a VAR-GARCH model. The results can be summarized as follows. Negative news have significant positive effects on yield spreads in all GIIPS (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) countries but Italy before September 2008; markets respond more to negative news, and their reaction has increased during the recent financial crisis. News volatility has a significant impact on yield spread volatility, the effects being more pronounced in the case of negative news and bigger in the most recent crisis period, especially in the GIIPS countries. Further, the conditional correlations between yield spreads and negative news increase in absolute value during the financial crisis (especially in the GIIPS countries), indicating a higher sensitivity of the former to the latter.     

Portfolio optimization under Expected Shortfall: contour maps of estimation error

The contour maps of the error of historical and parametric estimates of the global minimum risk for large random portfolios optimized under the Expected Shortfall (ES) risk measure are constructed. Similar maps for the VaR of the ES-optimized portfolio are also presented, along with results for the distribution of portfolio weights over the random samples and for the out-of-sample and in-sample estimates for ES. The contour maps allow one to quantitatively determine the sample size (the length of the time series) required by the optimization for a given number of different assets in the portfolio, at a given confidence level and a given level of relative estimation error. The necessary sample sizes invariably turn out to be unrealistically large for any reasonable choice of the number of assets and the confidence level. These results are obtained via analytical calculations based on methods borrowed from the statistical physics of random systems, supported by numerical simulations.     

The Effect of Financial Liberalization on the Capital Structure and Investment Decisions of Indonesian Manufacturing Establishments

This article analyzes the consequences of financial liberalization,using a large panel of Indonesian manufacturing establishments.It discusses whether financial reforms have had an impact oninvestment and on the allocation of credit and whether the effectsdiffer depending on the type of firms. The overall conclusionis that shifting from administrative toward market-based allocationof credit has increased borrowing costs, particularly for smallerfirms, but, at the same time, has benefited firms by givingthem widened access to finance.     

Estimates of the Open Economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve for Euro Area Countries

This paper extends the existing literature on the open economy New Keynesian Phillips Curve by incorporating three different factors of production, domestic labor and imported as well as domestically produced intermediate goods, into a general model which nests existing closed economy and open economy models. The model is estimated for nine euro area countries and the euro area aggregate. We find that the general specification of our model improves the fit of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve considerably compared to the closed economy specification. The estimates of the structural parameters of the model suggest strong heterogeneity in the degree of price rigidity across euro area counties. Furthermore, we find the degree of price rigidity to be systematically lower in the open economy specification than in the closed economy specification and also lower than in the general specification of our model.

Team Management： A Reflection on Leadership to Achieve Success

This study aims at rethinking the posture and attitude of professionals in, managerial and leadership positions, regarding the organizational management, showing that it is possible to motivate a team, valuing the human and maintaining a good working environment, with respect and collective participation towards a common good by focusing on problem solving regardless the resources that the company can offer to encourage and satisfy its employees. In order to prepare this study, survey was conducted from empirical studies, literature surveys, and qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in a company linked to the tobacco sector. The results show that companies are still adapting to new paradigms of the market and seek to achieve greater productivity with the accomplishment of teamwork, considering aspects such as leadership, motivation, and interpersonal relationships.     

Emissions burden shifting in global value chains – winners and losers under multi-regional versus bilateral accounting

ABSTRACT

International trade leads to emissions burden shifting and threatens mitigation targets. Multiregional input–output (MRIO) and bilateral trade input–output (BTIO) models are widely used to analyse emissions embodied in trade and global value chains. Especially, the last one is used in analysing border tax adjustment (BTA) on the carbon content of imports. The model choice is not trivial. The analysis shows BTIO's inability to capture the consumer-principle throughout the production chain and its inadequacy as an option for consumption-based accounting, because it allocates emissions to the first importing country and to the sector of production, instead to the consumer (both country and region). Regarding the BTA assessment, BTIO tax domestic carbon content of direct imports, but not indirect imported carbon content. MRIO does provide incentives for mitigation in third countries. The differences in allocation of emissions and taxes’ burden of both models have different consequences for developed and undeveloped regions.     

Technology choice in an evolutionary oligopoly game

In this paper, we propose and analyze a two-stage oligopoly game in which firms first simultaneously choose production technologies and in the second stage simultaneously choose production quantities. After characterizing the Nash equilibrium of the game, we cast our static model in a dynamic setting exploring the stability properties of the market equilibrium in two different cases: (i) exogenously distributed technologies and Cournot adjustments and (ii) endogenously distributed technologies in an infinite population game with Cournot–Nash equilibrium outputs. The main aim of the paper is that of extending the results about Cournot oligopoly stability in an evolutionary setting of heterogeneous decreasing returns-to-scale technologies. We show how the interplay between production decisions and R&D decisions can generate endogenous market fluctuations leading to complex dynamic phenomena.     

The Impact of Degree Duration on Higher Education Participation: Evidence from a Large‐scale Natural Experiment

This paper investigates the effects on enrolment, retention rate and on‐time graduation of a nationwide Bologna Process reform introduced in Italy to establish BAs with a duration of three years, followed by optional second‐tier degrees of two years, in place of single‐tier degrees of four or five years. The analysis exploits exogenous delay of treatment conditions and the unique availability of microdata that cover the universe of the departments. We estimate that the reform boosted first‐year enrolments by 14.5–17.3 percentage points, compared to a counterfactual status of no reform. This enrolment shift was due to participation gains rather than substitution effects, and it is likely to have persisted in the longer term. Moreover, no trade‐off between increased participation and deteriorated retention and on‐time graduation emerged.     

Strategy-Structure Alignment in the World Coffee Industry: The Case of Cooxupé

This case discusses the evolution and challenges of Cooxupé—a coffee marketing cooperative in Brazil. Founded in 1954 by twenty-four producers, Cooxupé experienced significant growth since 1990 as a result of direct export efforts implemented by Joaquim, the Export Director. Yet Cooxupé leaders face increasing challenges ahead. The world coffee industry has evolved in such a way that growth is deemed essential for survival. The growth imperative poses additional challenges to Cooxupé. First, it becomes more difficult to originate coffees with the quality consistency expected by clients. Second, the increased size and heterogeneity of the membership may have negative impacts on cohesion. Third, financial constraints create the need to evaluate and possibly change the cooperative ownership structure.